The Day My Hero Died

"I loved him. And his genuine interest in my life made me want to do better. To be better. Not bigger. Better."

Apr 20, 2025

When I walked into the hospital room, my 45-year-old cousin Fred had already passed. I knew this would be the way I saw him before I entered, yet I was still so glad just to get a few more minutes with my hero.

Fred’s wife Dana, my cousin by blood, had kept her beloved’s last days private at his request. But she called me in my car and asked if I wanted to drive over to Northwestern Memorial to see him one last time, even in his expired state. I nearly jumped the median when I U-turned.

If the preceding sounds a bit morbid, that’s because you’re reading mere words on a page. But if you’ve lost anyone whom you not only loved, but was your north star, you get it.

Fred’s death, which came after a long and valiant battle against cancer, happened in 2010. Outside of preparing for his eulogy, this is the first time I’ve been able to write about it.

What is the measure of a man’s life? Is it how he cared for his family? How he lived as a spouse? As a father? As a son? Is it how he acted as a professional? As a friend? As a citizen? Was he a humanitarian? A role model? A fearless doer? Fred Cohen was one of the few people I’ve ever met who touched every base.

Fred was an attorney who worked for one of Chicago’s blue chip law firms, Goldberg Kohn, and he used his position and the law to fight for Illinoisans who could never afford to hire someone like him.

In 2000, Fred convinced the firm to let him litigate a huge class action lawsuit — pro bono — on behalf of 600,000 children who were eligible for Medicaid and were being defrauded. In 2004, he served as lead counsel in the case against the Illinois Departments of Public Aid and Human Services — and won. In Goldberg Kohn’s own words, “the case resulted in a landmark decision vindicating the rights of children to health care.”

Fred took on more of these cases, strictly on contingency fees, and his success let to the creation of an actual False Claims Practice at Goldberg Kohn. He made the firm so much money doing good that they wanted him to keep doing more of it.

In 2005, Fred took on a massive case against Amerigroup. The corporate health insurance giant had been illegally avoiding pregnant women and other people with expensive health conditions — while continuing to receive millions in state and federal dollars. Eventually the DOJ and Illinois Attorney General’s Office jumped on the bandwagon, and Fred’s team won an unprecedended $334 million in fraud damages from Amerigroup.

Fred didn’t care about the “records” he was setting or all of the prestigious honors that were being bestowed upon him. What he cared passionately about and focused single-mindedly upon was winning justice and resources for millions of underrepresented people who were getting screwed. My cousin’s entire professional life makes every lawyer joke you’ve ever heard sound ridiculous. He was already doing so much to change the world, yet he was only just getting started.

In his “spare time?” You name it, Fred could do it (and annoyingly well). He was an expert sailor. A performing guitarist. He competed in Las Vegas’ World Series of Poker. He skied. He scuba dived… the list is long.

And for some reason, this hero of mine saw valuable things in me that I did not always see myself. He loved hearing about the political campaigns I was working on, and often introduced me to amazing people who could help with any cause I was involved in. Ten years ago, when I wrote my first book, I dedicated it to “my dear friend and authentic hero.” It was an easy choice, even knowing he’d never get to read it.

Fred Cohen battled kidney cancer for nearly a decade, while doing everything I described above — as well as being a loving husband to Dana, an incredible son to his mother Marva, and a hall-of-fame father to my little cousins Ben and Emily (whose hearts and triumphs remind me of him every single time we connect).

One of the Cohens’ many vacations to Grand Cayman in the Caribbean. Dana’s mother Marge (in green), Fred’s mom Marva, Ben and Emily.

I have no doubt that Fred’s family was what kept him alive for so long. Especially Dana, whose spine of steel somehow held it all together. An epic love story, the two of them met in high school. I’ve never seen another couple quite like them.

On May 4th, it will be 15 years to the day since I walked into that hospital room. Why did it take me so long to write these words? I honestly couldn’t tell you. But Fred was the first close person I ever lost, and it cut deep. I was 43 at the time, and incredibly angry. At his funeral, I held nothing back. It wasn’t pretty.

I do think it’s possible that I’ve been thinking more about my hero over the last few months due to what’s been happening to our country and its institutions of health. When I first thought about writing this, my intent was not at all to be political. But when I told Dana about it, I asked her how she thought Fred would have reacted to all that’s going on. My fierce cousin answered me without hesitation. A piece:

“He would be aghast. Over the years, as things have been getting crazier, I think of him saying ‘the pendulum needs to swing so far in order to come back to the middle, or at least to something reasonable.’ When people get cancer, or the next pandemic hits, or there are no weather reports, or their house burns down or gets flooded, or the brain drain that will happen in this country affects them personally, maybe they will wake up to realize that our tax dollars should go to science and research.”

I really thought about whether or not I should include Dana’s conjecture here. The reason I ultimately did is because I know Fred would absolutely have wanted me to.

Before Fred got to be too sick, we had a tradition of going to a seafood restaurant downtown called Catch-35. Just the two of us. Shrimp cocktails, scotch, Fred’s killer wit, big time laughs, and spirited conversations about politics, family and whatever we were working on at the time. His genuine interest in my life made me want to do better. To be better. Not bigger. Better.

I miss those dinners. I miss my hero. I miss feeling his confidence in me. But more than anything else, I know how huge a jackpot I hit to have ever had the guy in my life in the first place.

The day my hero died, he became (even more) immortal to me. And although I didn’t realize it at the time, I became (even more) grateful for knowing him.